Sometimes you just can't win for trying

Life is filled with quirky little ironies, perversities and coincidences. My wife's late mother used to call some of them "idio-syncrazies," with the emphasis on the fifth syllable.

Just the other day, we were headed for a doctor's appointment for which we were already 10 minutes late when a longtime neighbor flagged us down, intent on discussing a recent Patriots football game.

That's always the way it goes. If we'd had 20 minutes to spare, the neighbor would have been nowhere in sight, perhaps bending someone else's ear about Bill Belichick's strategy halfway across the county.

Of course, when we got to the doctor's office, we had to sit in a crowded waiting room for more than an hour anyway. If we'd arrived on time for the appointment, the doctor would have been called out for an emergency 10 minutes earlier. You can't beat these things.

— If you leave your sunglasses at home because it's a grey day outside, you won't get halfway to work before the sun comes blazing at you like a laser beam, but if you wear them because it's so sunny out, chances are it's going to cloud up and rain. Same thing with an umbrella.

— If you need gas and pass up a station selling it for $3.39 a gallon because it's on the wrong side of the street, the next five places on your side will be selling it for $3.57. And the sixth will be closed.

— If you finally throw away an old pair of shoes, that will be the week your house gets flooded and you have to start cleaning up the mud in the $80 pair you just bought Tuesday.

— If you cancel your subscription to a magazine that hasn't published anything you wanted to read for months, and just helps clutter up your desk, the first copy after it expires will carry a sordid scandal story about a guy you bunked with in the Army.

— If you drive into a tunnel, the car radio will broadcast the score of the game you bet on, but you won't hear it because of interference. When you're through the tunnel, the station will have nothing but commercials.

— If your pals organize their annual Boys Night Out at a strip joint, that will be the first night of your mother-in-law's visit.

— If you make a circus catch of a foul ball at a Red Sox game, the cameras will be focusing on the visitors' dugout, but if you blow one a Little Leaguer would have handled easily, you'll be seen on every TV in the region, and possibly immortalized in a national recap of the 50 Biggest Fan Flubs.

— If you put two letters in the mailbox, one without a stamp, that will be the one returned for postage, carrying a check that had to be paid by Friday or you'll pay a substantial fee. The other, thanking Aunt Madge for the doily she knit you for Christmas, will be stamped and on its way.

— If you book a flight to Florida to get away from the snow and cold, all the airports in the Northeast will be closed the day of your scheduled takeoff because of snow and cold.

— If you name your new baby Uneek so he'll really be unique, half his nursery school classmates in 2018 will be named Uneek.